Chapter 10: Blackwell and the Shared Banker

The pharmaceutical regulator found him in the narrow corridor between cars four and five, where the heating element in the wall panel had developed a faint, irregular tick — a sound Blackwell had catalogued at 3:17 a.m. as the joint compound cooling and dismissed as irrelevant.

The man was still wearing his burgundy waistcoat. This struck Blackwell as either a sign of pathological routine or of someone who had not slept, and the slight tremor in the hands suggested the latter. His name — Blackwell had confirmed it from the conductor's berth records at some point between the avalanche and the forensic argument with Solano — was Reiner Falk. Senior regulatory examiner, BfArM, the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. Retired eight months ago. Officially.

"Mr. Blackwell."